After being teased about great seiyuu guests earlier in the year, Anirevo comes through with Itou Miku, Ohashi Ayaka, and Machico along with veteran Morita Masakazu. Their big summer event delivers on top with Animusix concert and Hololive shenanigans.
For those who have been to the big anime event at Vancity, it’s likely old news for you, but this kind of sleepy con is actually the ideal hybrid of Western con culture with Asian sensibilities. Yes, it’s run by Chinese people, but I think they’ve done a good job overall. First off there’s appropriate tiering to better monetize the smaller demo of con goers and keep things cheap enough for the masses. What’s more amusing to me was while waiting out in line to get in on an early Sunday morning, two clear-eyed Japanese tourists was wondering about the anime event and the nearby cosplayers in display, and wanted to go. It’s that kind of an Asian-cosmopolitan mix. Just random Asians of all types walking around the waterfront on a sunny Sunday…
The 3-day event starts in the morning where people linecon to get their badges. With premiere I was able to get around this and line up for a nice spot during opening ceremony, while meeting up with friends from nearby and afar alike. I also ended up working for much of Friday morning and didn’t get back to the con until late in the day. I guess I also went out to eat with some friends at Richmond since nothing on the schedule was particularly a big draw. I guess this was the day I could have met Takadera-san again but it just didn’t work out time-wise.
Morita was suppose to have a photo and autograph session on Friday, but those were cancelled due to some issue on his end, probably related to his physical condition. He was able to make it to the Friday evening panel which I was able to catch. It’s all good stuff. At the time we were hoping to use those sessions to figure out how the con will deal with line control and photo sessions for the rest of the weekend, because the rules and setup are different this year.
Since I sat out of the Hololive stuff, I ended up having an early supper with friends who weren’t going, and a later dinner with friends who did. At the end I felt pretty tired after all the walking, working, and socializing…and having to wake up early for Eastern time work activities. It does make waking up early on Saturday easy? I also went to Richmond for a late lunch, which might make things more tiring (but more fulfilling).
Somehow when the big day came, we got down to the premiere line nice and early, and was easily in the first group to go in. We also had pretty good positioning thanks to the splurge on hotel. For some reason, Anirevo decided to schedule the 3 female seiyuu photo and sign sessions at the same time, so unless you have premiere you can’t really hop them. There were various issues with the premiere lines for those sessions, but I was about to get 4 out of the max of 5 Saturday gets, so I considered that good enough.
The Saturday concert was, well, very delayed due to technical issues from the 2 Vtuber openers. It was just real-time karaoke streams, but one of them were unable completely to do anything, and the other one had 3 songs, one which suffered from audio sync issues.
The other half of the show features Hasshi, Mikku, and Machico in that order, each performing just 3 songs. Set list here:
Anirevo, I hope you got your money’s worth, because this concert was so, so short! That said I am pretty happy with what was in the concert, so maybe it’s okay that each only performed THREE songs. I don’t mind paying more if the concert was longer, but I also flew in cross-country mainly for this so your mileage will vary. If there was a silver lining, it was that it was easy to go all out for all 9 (or 9.5) songs, since it was so short. It was about 45 minutes for the 3, including the encore.
We spent a few hours camping (since before 2pm) for a show that was suppose to start at 7 but didn’t really start until 7:45. OK maybe it was more than just a few hours, now that I wrote it down… It was good social time with friends who flew in, and a few who didn’t. We mostly got front row seats, and even the friends who were non-premiere had decent seats. That said the room wasn’t full, maybe 80%? Or less? Still we had a huge room this year, twice as large as prior years for Anirevo main event, so that was probably fine.
I’m also super glad we got Wagamama Mirror Heart because some of us were there mainly for that song, or it’s a big reason. It was special to see Hego and get that 1-on-1 treatment. She was pretty much exactly what you would expect, and in 10 years in, her answers to the Q&A (mostly straight-laced) are as solid as they come. If anything it’s a tad too rehearsed, but maybe we just don’t ask really good questions.
Same could be said of Mikku, although there was slightly less anticipation to her songs than her photo sessions and Q&A. I’m just glad someone asked about Anyuri and Mikku dragged Natsukawa into the answer. Otherwise, Mikku really kept her answers on point and short, which help go through more questions than the others.
Machico was a bit more giggly and fun in her Q&As, but otherwise the formerly-Horipro answered similiarly.
Other than the lining-up being different, the autograph session this year differed that you can only get a shikishi signed (and they charge you $20) versus your badge (free). No personal items is kinda the compromise we had but I think this was OK. No photo tickets, but the spirit of the photo booth this year wasn’t really different than prior, just that the demand is higher. So high, in fact, on Sunday the printer ran out of ink and paper.
Yeah I looped a lot. This is what a friend did for Itou Miku:
We stayed at the Pan Pacific using Amex FHR, and it was pretty okay. The hotel’s main clients are cruise goers who need to hang around Vancouver without going far, as it’s literally part of the terminal. It’s got 5 star service in a 4 star accommodation, in a way, so it was more for us the ability to use the lounge, and be literally the closest hotel to the entrance of the con. Vancouver hotels in August are sky high in price so we split many ways to make it affordable. Maybe next time we’ll stay at another similar hotel in the vicinity.
The guests also wrote about their trip. Miku about the whale, Machico about the lobster they ate? Hasshi said something. I did this thing that Machico has confirmed delivery. We could not have been finished with it without your help.
PS. Eats-wise….
Richmond Chinese food…not really photogenic but this was notable:
Dinner on Saturday was at Chop literally by the con.
We got a lot of beef, and after tips, a drink and dessert, it was not even close to 100 US bux.
Sunday dinner was at Miku, the unfortunately named Japanese fusion joint near the con. It sold a pepperocino, which is pictured on the right. We actually splurged at Miku so not pictured are a lot of other beautifully plated food that is worth more than the taste I demand from a joint like that. Now only if it sold a hot dog, I could one-eats-three-guests. I did end up getting Japadogs Saturday for lunch.
Sorry I took a bite out of this before I shot the photo, which then I realized, why Blue Jays… RIP the Expos.
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